Friday, July 8, 2016

You knew it would happen. If you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind, This time the whirwind was Dallas.Barack Obama's presidency promised to be an era of racial healing. Many people voted for the manifestly unqualified senator because they wanted to make a gesture, to give a vote of confidence to the African-American comunity.Americans on the left and the right patted themselves on the back for electing Obama, for electing someone based on race, not qualifications. Even those who did not vote for Obama allowed themselves to rejoice about what they perceived to be America's racial maturity. No one quite understood that ovecoming the sin of racism would not solve the financial crisis.We now know that the American people miscalculated. The era of racial healing looks more like an era of racial animosity. The utterly composed and contained Harvard Law grad began more and more to look like a deer caught in the headlights, in way over his head. It was not so much that the idol had feet of clay as that his mind had been captured by the black liberation theology of Jeremiah Wright.Of course, everyone believed that Obama had renounced the Rev. Wright in a 2008 speech that sent a tingle up (or was it down) the leg of Chris Matthews. It takes a special blindness to believe that a habit of thought cultivated for two decades would disappear with a twenty minute speech. It is impossible to reconfigure one's mental processessing at mach speed. You might believe that you can, but then you will be fooling yourself or everyone else or both.Anyone who believed that Obama's policies were going to improve the lives of black Americans were oblivious to reality. Economic advancement comes through hard work, coupled by the right policiees. Obama offered the wrong policies and allowed people to think that they no longer needed to put in the extra hours. He would take care of them, would liberate them from the oppressive shackles of white racism.His constituents refuse to see Obama as a Pied Piper so they continue to keep blaming white people. Obama has not failed them. White racists have obstructed his agenda and did not allow it to benefit them. Yet, if you tell blacks that they are not responsible for their lives and tht anything bad that they do is the fault of their white puppet-masters, you are teaching a debilitating lesson. They are learning that they are not responsible for their own actions. If the deck is stacked against you, why bother?Exonerating blacks while blaming white has been the hallmark of the Obama administration. It's motto should have been: blacks getting away with stuff.When the New Black Panther Party intimidated voters in Philadelphia, Eric Holder's justice department dropped the case. When a white police officer in Ferguson, MO shot a black man, he was exonerated by all investigations. And yet, the meme pesists: the officer was guilty of murder. And the death of Freddy Gray was declared a homicide, even if the courts have clearly said otherwise. Anything to make blacks feel victimized. Anything to make them feel justified in rioting and burning down their neighborhoods.Of course, if inner city Chicago becomes a killing field, and if blacks are killing blacks in record numbers, no one gives a damn. If it does not fit the narrative, it does not count.The administration has cast a benevolent eye at Black Lives Matter protesters, When said protesters called for the murder of police officers, they were exercising their rights to free speech. If any of them actually committed a crime, the fault lay with guns, with the gun lobby, with the NRA, with Christian Republicans.One recalls the remark of Nobel Prize winning biologist, Peter Medawar: "... it is the height of folly to blame the weapon for the crime."This is not to say that injustice does not exist. It is not to say that no white police officer has ever committed a crime against a black American. It does say that in a nation ruled by laws such incidents are best dealt with in the criminal justice system, where the accused retains due process protections.Nothing, our now-anguished president and his Attorney General say, can possibly justify what happened in Dallas. And yet, the massacre in Dallas was simply the enactment of rhetoric that the adminstration and its enablers has been trafficking for years now. The Obama administration was playing with fire. It just got burned. The evident anguish was less for the deaths of the police officers than for the realization that the administration had failed miserably in its policies promoting racial healing.

The thing I find interesting is that BLMs does not want to be judged by the same standard they use to judge the police in this country. The logic would follow that if the actions of one, or more than one, represents the police in this country then the actions of one, or more than one, represent BLMs. We will all be judge by the standards we use to judge others.These nice easy stereotypes of others are alway spurious and wrong. So it would appear that the man who was to "part the waters," lead to racial healing, et al is none of those things. If fact he and his administration have done more to exacerbate, exaggerate, traffic in easy stereotypes and inflame racial tensions in this country There is the demagogue's jump to racism, sexism and all the other "isms" that are used to divide us and if that doesn't work blame guns. How much easier to blame the inanimate object than to blame the person who uses the gun. It is akin to blaming the car for killing a person because the driver was texting. It does make some semblance of explanation for an administration and party that never takes responsibilities for their actions and the ramifications that follow. I fully expect that we will get the same thing with Hillary when it comes to sexual relations. It is the mistake we make when we vote for people because of their sexual equipment, race or any other none important characteristics for governing and leading a country.

Obama enables victimization and rationalization, all ending in one tidy euphemism: "America sucks."

Our president's Jeremih Wright education fuels his core victimology, informed by ideology and spirituality. His law education allows him to rationalize his worldview.

So now we are left with a cool, aloof figure who is disgusted with the nation he leads, talking down to us like children. That is his legacy.

The Democrat Party has followed his lead, now ideologically unleashed, in full expression as a coalition of whining malcontents. All this has ripened over 7+ years and is now being weaponized by allied activists and organizations. The rot goes all the way, and does not discriminate by age, as the Democrat old guard has been fully dispatched.

Hillary Clinton's CNN interview yesterday on Dallas/BLM was a disgrace, as it rationalized violence and put the onus on people who had nothing to do with it. She lies and gets away with it, so why not now? After all, she is the most gleaming example of a political class above the law, chatterers who say citizens should not have guns, while she is surrounded by bodyguards with guns and separated fences and barriers to keep people away. Behold the D.C. cocoon.

There is tremendous fear and anger at the heart of the Democrat coalition. They are terrified of a world offering freedom and opportunity, and would trade it all to their masters for one more day of security coming from government as Santa Claus.

Being a victim is easy. The incentive with being a victim is that one does not have to be responsible for their own life, their family, their community... anything. It's someone else's job. This mindset is bondage. Master and dependent. Thats the trade-off. That's the purpose... keep the D.C. cash gravy train rolling into America's cities, all controlled by Democrats. It's a shame what's going on with education and economic opportunity, but that's collateral damage. It's all someone else's fault anyway.

You got, I want. No justice, no peace!

Obama's tenure is sad, because it's a trail of tears... the tears of the poor and working-class Democrat constituencies who are so reliable and useful come election-time. Their despair is just more collateral damage. Obama keeps his eyes on the prize, his true agenda: Democrat hegemony at the federal level.

For all the soaring rhetoric, Obama's choices show him as he is: a Chicago thug.

Police are now in the crosshairs as a logical consequence, and the Democrat voices cannot imagine why. All this amidst an environment they've fueled with Ferguson lies. Never mind that police officer killings are up 44% and they have smart phones jammed in their face when trying to do the job everyone needs them to do. Yeah, why so edgy? The scene in Dallas is telling: protesters scattering at the sound of gunshots, police moving toward the danger... 5 paying the ultimate sacrifice.

And this hot summer weekend, lots of black people will be shot and many killed in America's urban areas, and those lives won't matter. The facts don't fit the narrative, so it must be the weapon, not the crime. Blacks are demonstrating that black lives don't matter until white cops shoot young black males. That is the qualification for a black life to "matter," as it can be used by politicians, activists, et al. Facts and courts be damned. America sucks.

Well done, Ignatius, you have encapsulated the problem perfectly. We are surrounded by lies and mendacity thinly veiled behind a tissue of hypocritical moralizing. The past seven and half years of Obama have been truly distressing for many of us.

Everything is upside down. Lawlessness at our borders and on our streets, vilification of a yellow domestic political opposition, befriending the worst of our foreign enemies, turning terrorism into a criminal justice problem (while not calling it by name). This is Obama's way of making sure America gets its due. We created all these problems at home and in the world. Now the messiah will set everything right once and for all. It's payback time. That's justice.

The goal is to create chaos and destruction, from the ruins of which, supposedly, the Destroyers will rise to rule -- not that there will be a world left worth ruling, but Milton and his Lucifer covered that a long time ago.

Here's another one.http://nypost.com/2016/07/08/obama-should-stop-smearing-cops-by-calling-them-racist/

"If black victims really believe police are so racist, why would they even bother reporting crimes? If blacks think that police are by and large incompetent, dishonest or apathetic, there would be little reason to turn to them for help.

But blacks don’t shy away from reporting crimes to the police. Data compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2008 to 2012 show blacks are actually more likely than whites to report violent crimes to the police (54 percent to 45 percent).

Blacks consistently report violent crime at a higher rate than whites do. This is true of all income groups and of both suburban and urban areas. This higher rate of reporting is true in areas where blacks face higher violent-crime rates than whites and also when the reverse is true.

If black victims do become more reticent to report crime, criminals will find crime less risky and we will see more of it.

Inflammatory, false claims about police racism not only endanger the lives of police officers, they can also lead to higher crime rates — especially in heavily black areas. If Obama really cares about poor blacks, he should be more careful getting his facts right."

By the way, the whirlwind is already in motion:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3681287/Police-officers-alert-nationwide-wake-Dallas-shooting.html

"Black Lives Matter protesters have been sprayed with tear gas in Phoenix after a march against police brutality spiraled out of control.Police also fired bean bag rounds and pepper spray at the protesters, who were seen running away and shielding their eyes.One image showed a white man holding a Donald Trump 'Make America Great Again' placard interrupting the protest on Friday night.Less than three hours after the demonstration began at 8pm, police declared the protest an 'unlawful assembly' and ordered people to leave after objects were thrown at officers, the Arizona Republic reported. In Rochester, New York, the SWAT team arrived and police arrested 74 protesters who were blocking the streets. One organizer, Ashley Gantt, said they sat down because they did not want any movement to be misinterpreted as violence after the shootings in Dallas.Other protests were calmer, with an estimated 5,000 people marching peacefully along a highway in Atlanta as they demanded justice for black men killed by police officers in recent days.There was a heavy police presence at the Atlanta rally as protesters halted traffic, with officers on high alert following Thursday's massacre in Dallas.Gunman Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, shot 12 officers and two civilians on a rampage that killed five Dallas cops.Friday evening's protest came as police forces across the country braced for any fall-out from the horrific shooting in Texas."

Yes, a busy day! What I think we can agree upon is young men without active father figures to guide them are dangerous, black, white or any background.

We might contrast to the Charleston church massacre a year ago, where 21 year old Dylann Roof decided he wanted to start a race war, and murdered 9 black Christians at a bible study.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting---...He spared one woman, asked her, "Did I shoot you?" She replied, "No." Then, he said, "Good, 'cause we need someone to survive, because I'm gonna shoot myself, and you'll be the only survivor."

The shooter allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but only then discovered he was out of ammunition. Before leaving the church, he reportedly "uttered a racially inflammatory statement" over the victims' bodies. The entire shooting lasted for approximately six minutes.---

Should we also blame Obama's presidency also for this young man's attack? Or is it just mental illness when young whites act badly?

I do hope that the most militant members of BLM ask themselves if they are encouraging violence against police, like this idiotic chant of a Saint Paul BLM group towards the police who were keeping them safe "Pigs in a blanket, fry them up like bacon."

How powerless do you have to be to feel hatred? How powerless do you have to be to only blame one side for any conflict?

MLK (from ‘Stride Toward Freedom‘ 1958)---Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.---

The hardest part of any nonviolent movement is apparently what you do with aggressive or violent people on your side, INCLUDING mental illness and people with various degrees of trauma. So if some commits brutal acts, or offers hateful words in your name, then they are saying you're responsible for their actions. So your words matter, and how people on your own side hear your words matter.

Finally on the question of whether Obama is responsible for all this? I find that offensive and dishonest. The reality of human experience is suppression is real, and you can suppress ugly things for years and say all is well because you don't have to look at what you don't want to see. So if you're later exposed ugly things that can't be ignored and talk about that, perhaps more ugly things will come out, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going backwards. Or sometimes you need regression before enough is out in the open and beyond denial that progress can be made.

Before the world of social media, before video recording and live feeds, justice was what police said it was. Seeing video makes suppression harder, makes a single narrative harder, even if it also distorts, by focusing only on the 0.01% failures and not that 99.99% of the time police do the right thing. There's good and bad.

Finally, this was interesting, police deaths are down in the last 8 years of Obama, although it looks like a general trend, not something any president has influence over, but that discounts the narrative police are under more danger now than in the past.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/09/police-are-safer-under-obama-than-they-have-been-in-decades/

p.s. In regards to charges of police racism (like Minnesota's governor saying the recent traffic stop killing wouldn't have happened if the man was white), I agree it is a loaded charge, impossible to defend against because we all have unconscious perceptions and fears that dominate us, especially when we're under stress.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6051971/police-implicit-bias-michael-brown-ferguson-missouri---Lorie Fridell is a University of South Florida criminologist who works with cops to help them resist subconscious biases, particularly against young black men.

"Similarly to explicit bias, [implicit bias] groups people into stereotypes and prejudices," Fridell said. "What's different is it doesn’t come with outward hostility."

In police work, this bias can show itself when an officer stops a subject he views as a potential threat. Police officers are legally allowed to use force based on their perception of a threat, so long as their perception is defined as reasonable (usually as judged by a prosecutor, judge, jury, or grand jury). That doesn't, however, mean they always use force. "Police very often use a lesser level of force even when they’re justified at a higher level," Fridell said.

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and California State University Northridge in May reviewed a decade of empirical evidence about cops and implicit bias. They found police officers seem to possess implicit bias that might make them more likely to shoot black suspects than white ones. But this bias may be partly controlled through proper training, and police officers appear to perform better — meaning they show less implicit bias — than participants from the general public.---

So that's promising - properly trained police may be less biased than the rest of us.

It is interesting to consider general society's fear against black men parallels women's fears again men in general. Men are assumed to be guilty because they're men and more violence is committed by men. Young black men are assumed to be guilty because there's more violence by young black men.

If a young black man, especially one who happens to be 6'4" and 280lb is going to scare cops no matter how gentle he tries to be. Imagine having that sort of strength and imposing build and needing to suppress one's advantage 100% of the time to make others feel comfortable, and if you say one little irritated word or surprising movement and someone can cry victim against you, no matter how verbally or physically aggressive they were before that.

But that's part of the reality of biology of differences. If God has given you a large build, your body is a deadly weapon even with no skill, and you will scare people who don't know you, and your life is in greater danger by a coward with a gun than if you could hide your physical advantage by some magic spell.

Our inner reptilian brain helped keep our early human ancestors alive for millions of years, but its a crude system, and doesn't always accurate assess threat. We can't let those systems dominate us unaware, unless we want to add to the misery of the world.